Pentagon Reopens Amid Search

Share

Pentagon Reopens Amid Search

WASHINGTON – Rescuers hoped to search the smoldering Pentagon on Wednesday for survivors and dead with the aid of sophisticated cameras and microphones.

Only about half of the massive building, struck Tuesday by a hijacked American Airlines jet, had power. Many of the 24,000 employees were asked not to come to work.

Smoke billowed from the damaged and collapsed areas on the southwestern side of the building, wafting over the northern Virginia skyline.

Firefighters said they were hopeful they could find survivors who might have found safety in a pocket created by the impact of the collision.

"We still have areas we think are viable" for survivors, said Michael Tamillow, a battalion chief and search and rescue expert for the Fairfax County, Va., Fire Department. "Somebody could still be in there who could be alive."

Teams of about 12 rescuers are equipped with dogs that can differentiate between bodies and live victims; acoustic listening devices that can pick up the faintest sound; and sophisticated cameras.

Authorities offered no updated estimate of the casualties. An Arlington County, Va., fire department official said Tuesday the number of dead could range from 100 to 800.

Around the area of impact along the building's perimeter, where a section of the building collapsed, FBI evidence teams found parts of the fuselage from the Boeing 757, Tamillow said. No large pieces apparently survived.

Agents also were looking for the plane's black box and flight data recorder.

Air inside the Pentagon was tinged with the scent of an electrical fire. In corridors where workers gathered, water and electricity, phone lines and computers were in full use.

But many corridors ended in blacked-out hallways. Yellow tape and Defense Department policemen warned people away.

The plane smashed a 35-foot area across five floors. The aircraft entered the building in the wedge between two corridors, collapsing the outermost ring of the building.

Pentagon officials asked workers in surrounding corridors not to enter their offices because of structural damage.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Army Gen. Henry H. Shelton, was in his office early Wednesday, as was Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, officials said.

In the air around the Pentagon, helicopters frequently landed and took off. Military trucks and jeeps went by in convoys. Ambulances and firefighting equipment ringed the area.

Tamillow said his team propped up the collapsed area overnight but did not try to search inside, where it was extremely dangerous. The debris was at an angle and there was concern about the possibility of an avalanche, he said.

Tamillow said the rescuers were able to identify locations of some of the dead.

Overnight, as the Fairfax team worked on the Pentagon's perimeters to shore up the collapsed section, they heard no sounds from survivors. But survivors could be deeper inside the building, and rescuers have not yet poked through the rubble inside.

"We were having a tremendous problem with smoke and tremendous heat," Tamillow said.